


Tie-Dye and Dumplings

by 26stars



Series: Time Traveler's Wife AU [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Birthday Party, F/F, Fluff, Future Fic, Halleyverse, Multi, Time Traveler’s Wife AU, Trip Lives, domestic AU, referenced Fitzsimmons family, referenced Mackelena family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25975000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Halley is turning nine and has some very specific requests for her party. This birthday means something different to May, but there’s an unexpected visitor who offers some encouragement.For AU August day 17: Domestic AU and my Fluff Bingo Square: ‘cooking together’
Relationships: Melinda May/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Time Traveler's Wife AU [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1271816
Comments: 18
Kudos: 25
Collections: AOS AU August 2020, Marvel Fluff Bingo, Women of the MCU





	Tie-Dye and Dumplings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agentmmayy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmmayy/gifts).



> My 100th fic on ao3! And go figure I missed a day of posting for AU August because of internet complications. But I love that it worked out for my 100th fic to be in the verse that mattered most throughout my writing journey here. For those of you who don’t know what Halley-verse means, this fic takes place in the time-travelers wife AU verse that I have a few works in already. You can probably enjoy the fluff without it, but there will definitely be some parts that don’t make sense. And a few spoilers for the primary fic.
> 
> Ness, this one was already going to be yours because of the dumplings ;) hope you enjoy!

Not every child asked for dumplings and tie-dye kits for her ninth birthday, but May would like to see anyone refuse a girl as cute as Halley anything.

“How many dumplings do you think we should make?” Daisy asks as they make a shopping list the weekend before Halley’s birthday party.

May props her chin on her hand, considering her limited experience of cooking for a crowd. “Twenty per person is probably a safe bet. I’d guess the men will eat more and the kids will eat less…so we ought to break even.”

“Twenty a person…okay but…” Daisy ticked the guests off with tally marks on her notepad. “You, me, Halley, Mama, Robin, Polly, Coulson, Jemma, Fitz, Sophie, Stephen, Mack, Elena, Tony, Andrea, Daniel, Trip, Gloria, Gabe—”

“Gabe is only three, don’t count him,” May interrupts. “He’ll eat maybe four or five.”

Daisy glances at May with a grin. “No way. That kid can put away more food than me when he decides he wants to. We’ll count him, and then his extras, if there are any, can be overflow.”

May shrugs. “So how many does that come out to?”

Daisy checks her tally marks. “Seventeen. Times twenty.”

“Three hundred forty?” May says, doing the math. “Oh, that’s not so bad.”

Daisy snorts. “Three hundred forty? You’re not even a little intimidated?”

May shakes her head. “Between Mom, you, Halley and I? We’ve got it covered. Plenty of hands.”

Daisy smiles. “What if we made a party out of it and let everyone wrap dumplings with us? I bet the older kids would love a chance to try it, and I could see a lot of the parents having fun with it.”

May nods, considering the possibility. “We could probably do that with one kind, but it would still be better to have a bunch made in advance, in case the newbies don’t wrap theirs well.”

“Yeah, and that’s pretty likely I guess,” Daisy concedes. “Maybe we could do an egg kind for that, so that the kids aren’t handling raw meat?”

“Smart. Okay, so what else is Halley asking for?”

Daisy looks back at her list. “Honestly? Not a lot. She wants dumplings, wants ‘the whole family’ over, wants to tie dye shirts together, and besides that, just the puppy she’s been asking for since she was three.”

“You have plans for that?” May asks her with a knowing smile, but Daisy rolls her eyes.

“I’ve told her before that she can have a dog when she has her own home. Even her puppy-dog eyes can’t quite make me change my mind about that.”

Melinda smiles and tries to mean it. But it’s hard when she remembers what a ninth birthday will mean for her and Halley.

* * *

Three-hundred and forty dumplings sounded intimidating enough when it was just an idea. Seeing all of them spread out, covering nearly every surface of the kitchen, is slightly horrifying.

“All I can say is, everyone better eat their share,” Daisy comments the morning of the party.

They’d been wrapping dumplings for two days straight, freezing them for the day of the party, and now it was time to start cooking. Lian had taken care of the filling—even if she’d been confident in her own ability, Daisy would have deferred to her experience. They had five different kinds, seventy dumplings each (ten extra for any incidentals)—beef and coriander, beef and carrot, pork and cabbage, pork and celery, and egg and chive. Lian had trusted May with the wrappers, which even in Daisy’s eyes was the simplest task, though it involved the most elbow grease (so maybe that was why she got that gig).

Daisy was in charge of everything else—cake, snacks, sides, drinks, decorations… Halley was going through a tie-dye phase, so she simply used all the colors as her theme, and on the morning of the big day, the house was full of balloons of every shade she could find. There were shirts and dye ready, and a cake big enough for twenty, and some lawn games in case everyone got bored.

Daisy really shouldn’t have worried though. It had been close to a year since they’d all been together, so the kids were more than thrilled to just play together in the backyard for most of the day, running inside occasionally to grab some food or a drink before racing back out. Daisy hugged on everyone plenty in between teaching them how to wrap dumplings (Elena took to it the quickest, though Fitz, surprisingly, was right behind her). In the end, even with the extras, there are only a handful left on the table by the time that it was time for cake, and May considered that a rousing success.

Halley is blowing out the candles of her cake when May glances around at the circle of nearly everyone she loves and nearly jumps at the sight of an extra person in the back of the room. Someone clapping and smiling along with everyone else, but also making meaningful eye contact with May.

She doesn’t want to miss cutting the cake and watching everyone dig into Daisy’s impressive tie-dye creation, but as soon as she can, May breaks away from the group to head down the hall to her and Daisy’s bedroom, where she thinks she saw the visitor headed. 

Sure enough, the woman is waiting on the other side of the door.

“Hi.”

This version of Halley looks…older. At least as old as the version May met in a hospital several years ago. Maybe not much younger than Daisy’s current age.

“You came to see your own birthday party?” May asks, closing the bedroom door.

Halley smiles. “It’s been a while since I traveled. Was trying to think of a happy memory worth re-living. And I figured you probably needed a little encouragement.”

May purses her lips. She’d been trying to be in the moment and enjoy the day…trying not to think what the next milestone in Halley’s life would be…

“This is why I never told my past self the age I was when I started traveling,” May confesses, knowing Halley will understand. “You wind yourself up until it’s nearly all you can think about.”

Halley smiles knowingly. “Yeah, that little girl who just blew out her candles has no idea what’s going to happen this year, and that’s probably for the best. And I’m sorry that you know. The longer it’s been since the hospital, the more I wish I hadn’t told you. But if it helps, I can tell you it’s not going to be for me like it was for you. It will just be a game for a long time, and you’ll be with me every step of the way. So don’t carry any guilt about whatever comes next.”

May attempts to smile, wanting to feel relieved by this, but she can’t help pushing her luck.

“How will it—”

“Nope, nice try,” Halley interrupts, shaking her head but smiling. “But I’m not here to tell you that. It will happen the way it happens. You’ll know the answer then.”

May tries to look frustrated, but she has a feeling she doesn’t quite manage it. “Well, are you going to hang around? I can introduce you to the guests.”

Halley shakes her head. “No, best not to scare anyone. And I’d also hate to take the attention off Halley-Mei on her big day. Give Laolao a hug for me though,” the woman requests, reminding May that a time is coming, sometime before Halley becomes a doctor, when Lian will no longer be with them.

“Happy birthday,” May offers, trying not to focus on premature grief on a day about life. “I’m glad to see you’ve got plenty more of them ahead.”

Halley smiles again, then crosses the room to pull May into a hug. “Thanks Mama. I’ll see you soon.”

When May makes her way back out to the party, the children are in the midst of a game of freeze tag on the lawn, fueled by their recent sugar rush. Daisy is standing out on the porch with Jemma and Elena, keeping an eye on the kids while they chat, and Lian is busy clearing away used dishes. May stops her in the middle of the kitchen once her hands are empty though and traps her in a hug.

”That’s from Halley,” she whispers when she pulls away, and with one look, she knows her mother understands.

”It’s always wonderful to see them growing—even better to see them grown.”

May looks out the window towards the lawn where Halley is running and shrieking with her family, a force of nature and joy.

Growing. And somewhere, some _time_ ahead, already grown. A gift of peace May wouldn’t have without the upcoming incident fixed in her future.

Seemed like a pretty good birthday present even so.

”Yeah,” May smiles. “It certainly is.”


End file.
